Spotted in SoCal: Vauxhall VX220, a Lotus Elise in disguise

If you spend any time hanging out in the same areas frequented by the affluent, you'll inevitably stumble across plenty of exotic motorized conveyances. Beverly Hills, Newport Beach and La Jolla, California are riddled with Bentleys, Porsches, Ferraris and Aston Martins. Since those vehicles are readily available for sale here, anyone with enough liquidity can wander in to a dealer and pick one up.

Every once in a while, though, you'll stumble across something genuinely unusual, that clearly took some effort to acquire. Such was the case the other day when we came across this diminutive silver speed demon in a La Jolla parking garage. Those familiar with the Lotus Elise and Tesla Roadster will recognize the lineage. However, this machine is far more sharply chiseled than its cousins.

This is the Vauxhall VX220, complete with the steering wheel on the right-hand side of the cockpit. During the first half of the 1990s last decade, Vauxhall and its continental counterpart, Opel, collaborated with Lotus to produce a rebodied and stretched version of the Elise powered by General Motors Ecotec four-cylinder engines. We have no idea how this car came to make its way to the Golden State, but if the owner (we're probably safe in assuming there is only one person in California with a VX220) reads this and cares to enlighten us, we're all ears.